Monday, July 30, 2007

Strawberry Mirror Cake

If my first task as a Daring Baker was to make Jewish Purist's Bagels, then my second task was to make a Strawberry Mirror Cake. The cake was chosen by Peabody, and you can find the recipe (which is rather lengthy!!!) here on her blog. I had never seen or heard of a strawberry mirror cake before, but apparently it's a classic fancy cake. It's also on the menu of Ritz Carlton Hotel in Bahrain, if you cannot be bothered to make one yourself :)

Well, the point of being a Daring Baker is to bother to make a cake even if the recipe seems a bit daunting. With 4 full pages of instructions, a frightening Bavarian cream and lots of gelatine, this recipe definitely scared me a bit. Yet I made it, and despite of some cursing and swearing in my kitchen (not a frequent sight, believe me), I ended up with a huge multi-layered strawberry mirror cake. Our friends Kristiina, Gretel, Peter and Kristel came to judge the cake (thank you for your help!!!), and everyone seemed to like it. K. thought it looked really professional, with nice and neat layers. I must admit I was a bit disappointed, as I expected the cake to have a much more pronounced strawberry flavour than it did. After all, I had used the last of seasons strawberries for this cake, and wanted it to be a true homage to those wonderful summer fruit.. I really liked the sponge, however, which had a delicious flavour and good firm texture - possibly because we used eggs from these really happy chicken again.

Anyway, here are some pictures. I'm not giving you full instructions below - you'll find them over at Peabody's blog - but I'll give you the metric measurements with my minor adaptations.

I baked the sponge at 200 Celsius (instead of the recommended 230 C, which seemed a bit high for me).

Garnish with whipped cream and strawberries:

*I had struggled with powdered gelatine way too much while making the mirror (I even had to dish one portion of the mirror mixture), then I used my tried and trusted leaf gelatine instead! If you read instructions on Peabody's blog, you're supposed to sprinkle gelatine over strawberry puree and simply let it expand there. This didn't work for me at all, so I did the 'usual' thing of soaking gelatine leaves in cold water, squeezing them dry and then mixing with some hot strawberry juice..

Overall I'd say that although it was fun taking part and I was rather pleased with the result, I can think of quite a few cakes that taste at least as good, if not better, are much less of an hassle to make, and don't require to use a whopping 11 eggs!!! I might consider making it again if K. really-really-really requests it. On the other hand, he's quite a skilled pastry chef, so he can just make his own strawberry mirror cake if he feels like :-)

Thank you, Peabody, for this challenge! You can see a list of other Daring Bakers here, with links to their Strawberry Mirror Cakes.

I am totally impressed with the beauty of that cake and the effort that went into it... And so admire you for making it!For me, I'll stick to the easier ones.... patience baking is NOT one of my strong points!

Your cake is truly amazing, I thought I was going a bit loopy for a minute...saw another Strawberry mirrored cake, on another site I look at..Lucillian Delights..keep up the good work, love reading both of your blogs.

Your cake looks awesome! I agree that the initial baking temperature might have been a bit high - I nearly scorched my cake. *IF* I ever make it again (and that's a huge if, because it was a big pain), I would lower the temperature for sure.

Pille - Your effort does indeed look professional. Sometimes I feel that the more we do to fruit, the less integrity there is to their flavors - and this is coming from a guy who almost always has to "do" something with his fruit!

It IS very professional looking and I agree that it didn't have the amount of strawberry flavor that I thought it would have. Even so, wonderful that you made it and shared it with friends.Sorry it took me so long to comment.

Oh Pille, you are a braver woman than I!! I have read a couple of the Daring Baker posts and it looks threateningly professional out there ;-) I really admire you for going to the trouble of baking this beautiful cake - well don!

Anne in Oxfordshire - that's what happened to me when I first 'spotted' the Daring Bakers. When they all wrote about croissants, then I thought it was coincidence. It was only when I saw Red Devil Cakes and then Gateau St Honore's everywhere, that I realised what was going on:)

Leslie - ovens can be so temperamental, so most recipes need to be adjusted for a specific oven. Mine is happiest at 200Celsius, whatever I'm making:)

Jeanne - you should join! And believe me, I've felt far from professional when working on the two challenges. Thank god nobody has been watching me then (even not K:)

Karen - elegant it was indeed, but only after quite a lot of hard work :)

Hi, I read in your blog and u mentioned that the cake didn't taste much of strawberries.I did some conversions, the original recipe called for 1.5pints of strawberries for the mirror, and in metric that'll be 510gms. You only put in 200gms for the mirror. Did that difference in amount of strawberries affected the taste?